A selection of coins and bank notes. It’s critical to account for both the economic costs and benefits of cutting carbon pollution.
Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA Wire

The Washington Post’s Matea Gold recently interviewed Charles Koch. When she asked if he was worried about climate change, Koch replied,

Well, I mean I believe it’s been warming some. There’s a big debate on that, because it depends on whether you use satellite measurements, balloon, or you use ground ones that have been adjusted. But there has been warming. The CO2 goes up, the CO2 has probably contributed to that.

Despite not being 100% accurate, at least Koch is beyond Stages 1 and 2 of climate denial (denying the problem exists or that we’re the cause). That’s better than some Republican presidential candidates like Ted Cruz and possibly even Jeb Bush, although most other politicians have moved beyond the first stages of climate denial, apparently viewing them as a political liability.

Koch’s Stage 3 and 4 Climate Denial

Unfortunately, Charles Koch exhibited Stage 3 (deny it’s a problem) and Stage 4 (deny we can solve it) climate denial in some of his other interview comments, saying,

They have these models that show [warming], but the models don’t work.

How to Avoid Economic Catastrophe

So do we want to create a catastrophe today in the economy because of some speculation based on models that don’t work?

It’s interesting that Koch believes that there’s no evidence for catastrophic climate change, but that cutting carbon pollution will create an economic catastrophe. In fact, that’s exactly backwards.

Cutting carbon pollution has costs, but it also creates benefits by reducing the costs of climate damages. To accurately evaluate the economic impact of climate policies, a cost-benefit analysis is needed. There’s approximately 95% agreement among economists that the benefits outweigh the costs and the USA should take steps to cut its carbon pollution.

Survey results of economists with climate expertise when asked under what circumstances the USA should reduce its carbon emissions. Illustration: New York University; Economists and Climate Change.

Consider the energy sector. We only know the true costs of various energy sources if we also account for the cost of the climate damages they cause, because taxpayers have to pay those costs as well. If you combine the costs of renewable vs. fossil fuel energy, and the estimated costs of climate damages, then wind and solar energy are in reality far cheaper than coal. Wind is also much cheaper than natural gas, and solar panels are around the same cost as natural gas.

This is the standard industry reaction whenever pollutant regulations are proposed. As President Obama noted, in every case the regulations have been successfully implemented, benefits have exceeded costs, and the economy and regulated industry have done just fine.

Bad for Koch Business, but Good for the Rest of Us

However, if conservatives are worried about these government regulations, there’s an easy solution: pass climate legislation that replaces those regulations with a free market alternative. That’s what Democrats have been trying to do for a decade. They even came close in 2009, and would have been successful with just a little bit of Republican support.

The problem for the Kochs is that even free market, small government policies to cut carbon emissions will be bad for the fossil fuel industry from which they greatly profit. And with the Kochs’ political network pledging $889 million for the 2016 election campaign, the Republican presidential candidates are under serious financial pressure to toe the same line.

But in the real world, an economic catastrophe is far more likely if we fail to cut carbon pollution than if we succeed. We can use free market forces to cheaply reduce those emissions, and in the process produce a great economic benefit by minimizing the costs of climate damages. It would be a loss for the fossil fuel industry, but a big win for the rest of the world.